Interesting read today from Fox news on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This is something that would effect SEO companies as they are prone to adding links and building blogs to get more traffic. The FTC has voted to regulate blogging and fine those that are posting product reviews for money. They believe that these reviews are misleading in that the consumer is unaware if the review is a organic unsolicited review or if the review is paid for by the product company. Further, many of these sites and reviews sign on as affiliates and receive a commission if the product is bought through their site.

The law will require that bloggers must make it known that they are being paid in a “clear and conspicuous” manner and the law goes into force December 1st, 2009. The law does not require notification for “free” products, meaning if I were to offer you free pest control service in exchange for a review then you are not required to disclose that you are receiving free service. While these regulations may make many bloggers nervous, the FTC says that they intend to target the companies and advertisers. This actually makes me more nervous as a pest control company.

Let’s say that I am paying an SEO company to build my site and back links. How can I be sure that the SEO company I hire is adhering to this law? Who then is responsible, the SEO company or the pest control company? Further, this law seems very inadequate. How do you define a “review” of a company or a review of a product? How will the FTC distinguish between legitimate customers reviewing a product or service versus the paid reviews? And what about blogs that benefit indirectly from their reviews (i.e. Google adsense)?

Or better yet define “clear and conspicuous”. How do I know if this site “clearly and conspicuously” show that I am a Bulwark employee. Is the facebook profile on the left sufficient or do I need to disclose this in every post? Beyond that this blog isn’t purely a Bulwark blog, its my own blog and thoughts as well. Bulwark does not sanction everything written on this blog and I am not really getting paid directly for my content.

Overall, however, I applaud the FTC’s attempt to regulate this gross flood of solicited reviews. It is unfortunate that so many companies and individuals are cashing in on the naive public. Having worked on the internet for sometime I spot the propaganda reviews and comments regularly. In fact, there are entire blogs that look like just a single user reviewing everyday products, but in fact are a paid blogger.

As far as I am aware Bulwark has not overstepped these requirements. But, again, I am unaware of every attempt hired SEO firms have undergone to boost my web presence. Further, I don’t know how they define “clear and conspicuous”. Hopefully a site that is owned by Bulwark is clear. But, it does sound like I will need to check in on my SEO team, and I would advise all internet advertisers and business owners to do the same. Don’t get caught with your pants down.

From your Pest Control SEO guy.

This post was not directly paid for by Bulwark Exterminating, however the writter is biased as to which pest control service is the best.

I recently attended an SEO class that talked about “selling the dream.” The premise was that the content you write should be geared toward the driving motivating desired outcome the client has. “Sell the dream”, was showing them the dream situation that your product or service creates. So the pest control dream, is…. “A pest free home.”, “A bug free Life.”, “A scorpion seal to keep scorpions out.”, “Never see another bug inside your home.” …. really there’s not much more to say. People want pest control because they want to get rid of bugs.

Honestly, some of these other “Dream” things were pretty far fetched for me. Like selling the “Win a date with this internet super model”…. Yikes. People actually buy into that? I personally am extremely annoyed by the newspaper advertised price for a new car, a car that never seems to exist on the lot because it was model 871XXX_BUG-ME&NOTreal1 and it was already sold… “Buy this gadget and never lose your keys again.” … unless you lose the gadget. “Never get caught by a photo radar ticket.” That one is a little more appealing to me.

Either way, the concept is correct. You talk to the customer’s desire. It’s the whole catch a fish thing. Some baits work and some don’t, but you’ll never catch a fish with just a hook. So in line with this thought I happened upon this email that didn’t make it to my junk folder and man is it good. Its a near flawless example of a good campaign…

Dear Sir,

I hope that I am not embarrassing you with this mail because you did not expect it or know me before. But kindly rest assured that I have irresistible urge to write it believe me, the mail is an indication of love for you and happiness I shall always wish you. I am Miss Martha. K. Pierre 20 years old and the only daughter and child of late Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand. K. Pierre the former diamond merchant in Guinea Conakry.

My late father was a wealthy Gold and diamond dealer my mother died ten years ago and my father was poisoned to death by his political members, before his death my father told me that he made me the next of kin of a fund he deposited in his offshore account with a financial institution in the Commonwealth of Dominica.

I have contacted the bank and confirm that my father really make me the next kin of the deposit, now I want you to assist me to transfer the money into your account in your country because the people that killed my father is after my life now to make sure that our family are drastically wiped off, infarct as I am writing to you now I am in hiding here please if you can help to save my life and transfer the fund to your account.

I am deeply interested to offer to you 25% from the total money that is involved for transferring it into your own designated account, again I will hand this money over to you to invest it wisely for me, as you know, this is the highest confidence and trust any person can repose on the other especially when it is considered that we did not know ourselves before then you are expected to display high degree of maturity, responsibility, and understanding in handling this information so that our family enemies will not know that I am getting around in me through your information.

The main aim of contact you are to assist me in three ways (1) to help and transfer the money to your country (2) and to help me get a profitable business for investment in overseas any where all is based on your professional advice and acceptance to assist me. (3) To help me have a stay in your country when I might come over to meet with you and continue my education (4) to help me manage whatever investment you will get for me until I finish my education.

I will give you every detail about the deposit for the transfer to carry on to your account. After you have indicated your interest and willingness to help me out of this problem to secure the money for a proper investment in your country. Please write to me as fast as to acknowledge this mail and thanks in anticipation. For the confidentiality of this transaction please strictly reply me at XXXXXX@XXXXXXX.com, for scurity porpourse thanks.

Remain In Bless the Lord.

Best Regards
Miss Martha. K. Pierre

Did you make it all the way through that email??? If you didn’t then I understand. Here are the Highlights:

2-Appeal to emotion– “irresistible urge”,”indication of love”, “happiness”. Wow lay that on thick!

3- The story– Everyone loves stories.

4- The benefits – What’s in it for me?… Gold, wealth, a young woman.

5-Call to action.

What about the dream? The whole thing was a dream and the perfect guy dream at that…. Wealthy 20 year old in love with you, pleading for you to save her. What man could resist?

Well that was great. They almost made it through a perfect pitch… minus the few misspelled words at the end and possibly because it’s “Too Good to be True.” Therein lies a very thin line. When are you overselling? Where is that line?

Just got through reading a post on marketing and they questioned the use of facebook and twitter. I agree, similar to my previous post there is a lot of hype about SEO tools and SEO stuff all of which is bugging me, because its like the emperor’s new clothes a bunch of hype with no fabric to it. Or this year’s big “Green Washing” marketing tactic. For many its a pitch. No substance to it.

Good business is good business. Good marketing on the other hand….
Twitter – A tool.
Facebook – A tool.
Hammer- A Tool.
What you do with the tool is what makes the difference.

You can use a hammer to build a building or use the same hammer to bring a building down.

same tool… your choice.

If you can combine good business with good marketing then you’ve got a two punch combo worth talking about. That’s where SEO comes to into play.

There is no sense pushing a product that does not carry its weight in gold. Pushing products that don’t give a customer what they want is a short term mentality. Its a losing game plan. But adding a little push to a product or service, like Bulwark’s pest control service, that already has momentum, well then you are just fueling the fire. And big fires get noticed. So start by building a good service, find under served customers, ask them what’s bugging them, and then fix it. Create a solution to someone’s problem. See a need, fill a need.

Once you have successfully separated yourself from the crowd you will get noticed. Getting noticed by customers and potential customers is great, but getting noticed by competitors may be a bad thing. Essentially if you cut the road to a new found success, your competitors will jump on the same road.

Why then would I be so liberal to share what we know?

I believe that the leader that finds the new territory and reaps the market domination will remain the leader for a good period of time. Perhaps the oil pump will run dry, but its still valuable while it runs. But more importantly I believe that competition makes us better. It makes every one better, which ultimately is a good thing for the consumers.

How do you stay ahead once your a leader?

“The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.” – Arie P. De Geus

Continued learning and reading. Is not a secrect. Its not a trick. Its improvement one step at a time and it consistent improvement. That’s it. Get ahead and stay ahead.

It’s your handy dandy Green Certified Website logo: http://www.co2stats.com. And you can buy it now add it to your site and they will monitor how many visitors you get and determine the carbon impact of your website. But wait, it gets better, Just by adding this logo to your site you will get visitors to Trust you more, stay longer, and link back to. WOW! What a magically little logo! And you don’t even have to be green! Just add the logo and watch the Green Cash Flow in.

BUT WAIT IT GET’S BETTER! For each affiliate website that signs up after clicking through on your magical Green Website Logo you will get a commission. So what we are really saying when we say Green is $GREEN$.

And Buy now and we will throw in yourFREE EMEPROR’S NEW CLOTHES!!!

THAT’S RIGHT

FREE EMPOROR”S NEW CLOTHES WITH EVERY GREEN LOGO PURCHASE!

….Sorry got a little carried away.

I will just finish up with one of my favorite quotes from Troop Beverly Hills. “Patches, we don’t need no stinking patches.”

What separates you from the competition? This question is the key to any marketing strategy and often the key to success for any business. Although some may venture through life never asking this question, enjoying success, and never giving any thought to the multiple variables that make them successful. Again, what separates you from the pack, answered or not is a key element to business survival. It may be your location, it may be your name, it may be your excellent service, but for whatever reason, your customers have a choice and they choose you. Knowing why they choose you can be huge!For those that leave this question unanswered and are still successful, you most likely could amplify that success by answering and exploiting your differences.

One example for Bulwark has been their ability to focus and conquer a very difficult pest, scorpions. Constant and successful scorpion control does not come by mere luck. Bulwark’s owner took the time to research, test, and evaluate different scorpion control methods and ideas. After success and failure, a real scorpion solution was found. Bulwark, as a modest and small family pest control company, didn’t do much to expound upon this success. However, the customers that realized the magnitude of effective scorpion control spoke out and communicated this to their friends. Now, after hearing the voices of thousands of happy scorpion free customers, Bulwark doesn’t just get noticed for scorpion control, no its better then a mere pat on the back, they get recommendations from other pest control companies. They get referred to by local Home Depot representatives as the scorpion specialists.

Now, the goal of a good marketing team is to magnify and amplify those voices and that service. Today, its hard not to find Bulwark if you search for scorpions in the areas they serve… or if you search for just scorpion control period.

What are the benefits of a family pest control over a big corporate run pest control?

What are the disadvantages?

Is there a happy medium?

One of Bulwark’s customers put it best for us… “Small enough to care, but big enough to do it right.”

But even beyond that is what Gerry touched on in a recent post. A family business may have some flaws… what you may be shooting for instead is a business family. Drawing from my experience with other family owned companies in the past, specifically a restaurant I worked for, it was almost hard to leave them because the owner and other employees had developed a real concern about each other. I have even had one family company ask to keep me on for about 10 to 15 hours a week in the evenings, and I felt like I needed to stay to help them out. The pay wasn’t great but it wasn’t about the pay. It was about the family.

So does your family pest control company fall into the pitfalls of family members getting away with murder and ultimately ostracize the non-family employees? Or does your franchise run a tight ship were every sailor on board would risk life and limb for another?

Just surfing the other pest control blogs out there and found this:

There’s no doubt that the mosquito is one of the most annoying pests, they bite and they always seem to show up in large numbers. This is this time of year when mosquitoes start to come around and can easily get out of control. But there are some easy steps to take to control and reduce the number of mosquitoes around the yard and house.

What’s that equation again?… 10z of prevention = 1lb of cure.

Funny, this comment seems to bring back debates on “what came first, the chicken or the egg.” How can you get visitors to your site if you are not being found? How can you be found if you are not feeding the Search Engine Beast?

Seriously, how quick and easy is it for visitors to come and go online. Its not like you are holding a meeting where its considered rude to stand up and walk out. Its online media. Come and go as you please. So the more visitors you get the more likely you are too succeed. Throw the spaghetti and see what sticks!

But if your throwing up all crappy uncooked noodles then what good does it do to have 1 million visitors if not a single one turns a profit? Oh I know why, because a million visitors will turn a profit! If you get them away from a search engine then give them only adsense options on your site to find the real and relevant content you get paid! So the visitors only become a numbered guest or a dollar sign. And the guys that think like that are more motivated to move sites then guys who are passionate about their subject or field of expertise. Why? Because we are busy in our field of expertise and not is some online computer SEO game.

For example, this site is about SEO for pest control companies. I have written this entire post with no regards to SEO optimization for pest control until now. Had I wanted better ranking for pest control I would have titled this differently and I would have mentioned related pest control terms over and over again. Trying to make it read as nice as possible, but not so secretively doing it strictly for SEO. But instead I am truly writing to write. I am writing because I am passionate about content quality vs search engine garbage. But, truthfully, as much as this page and site are about SEO, I highly doubt that I will ever turn a profit from my efforts here.

So I write to write. In fact, I don’t really even care if this post ever gets read. I hope that it does, but I am more interested in the few like minded pest control companies that are concerned about quality of product, quality of service and customer care first. Perhaps they will stumble upon this and together we can beat out the beast and the billion dollar companies. I think we can. The math shows that we, the little family owned pest control companies out number the big guys. But my question goes back to the same question that this post began with…. “Quality vs Quantity”

Are you a pest control company that cares? Do you put your customers first? Are you a SEO company that cares about your visitors (i.e. customers)? Do you put visitors first?

If you do, the road may be longer. It may be harder. But the success is also longer and more rewarding. My father taught me that a good business deal is when both parties walk away feeling like they have been treated fairly.

Doing what’s right for the customer = Doing what’s right for the company. Win – Win.